The Fiat Abarth and the spaces in between

We try out Fiat's two Abarths on track and off and accidentally discover the meaning of life

The range of products built by FCA has, generally, no real reason to exist — at least, not in the minds of any practical car-buyer. Almost every vehicle from FCA’s brands appear specifically made to fit in between the needs of most consumers.

Teeny, sporty roadsters. Near-800-horsepower go-fast brutes. Rafts of off-road-capable Jeeps. Does anyone really need any of these cars to exist?

No.

That’s the simple answer. However, it’s within this unjustifiable existence we find something much more important: purpose. For some drivers, it’s not the destination we care about, it’s the space in between the start and the finish line.

In life, it’s the space in between birth and death that we find meaning in. The Japanese have a word for this – ikagai – and since a Mazda MX-5’s bones underpin the Fiat 124, I thought it prudent to mention here.

That’s what FCA builds, vehicles that live in this space, I would argue. But to find out for sure, I headed to California with several other auto writers to spend some time in between the start and finish line of Laguna Seca race track in a few mildly updated Fiat Abarths.

To make sure all of us “journalists” didn’t crash and burn immediately, we were given a crash course in track driving from Skip Barber Driving School in Monterey, California. Fiat assumed most of us knew how to drive – big mistake – so we only got a fraction of a real lesson, just enough to get a bunch of lead-foot writers out on the track and, hopefully, not into too much trouble.

Laguna Seca itself looks intimidating. From wild elevation changes to an infamous “corkscrew” left-right, it’s the quintessential classic race track, impossible to build today. Turns out it feels no more difficult than a back roads drive, albeit one at 160 km/h. The track is wide and so are the curves, which meant we could keep the loud pedal pressed to the floor for the most part.

Alex Reid

Alex Reid

Alex Reid

Alex Reid

Alex Reid

Alex Reid

Alex Reid

Alex Reid

Alex Reid

Alex Reid

Both the 124 and 500 manuals and automatics we drove had been fitted with some mild upgrades to better power and agility. The 124 got a new “Record Monza Exhaust,” the 500 a set of “straight pipes” — really just a muffler delete. Regardless, the sound of the 500 was raucous compared to the gentlemanly 124, at least until you let off the gas at 7,000 rpm in the latter. At that point, you might feel subliminally compelled to fork over $2 to the concession stand manager for extra butter.

Step on the gas in the low revs and the torque – or lack thereof – will let you down, literally. On a track with such extreme elevation changes as Laguna Seca, you need low-end grunt for all but a few turns, and so want to keep the engine in a high rev range to let the turbo spin enough to propel you onward and upward.

The 124 is not a new vehicle, but that’s a compliment. The bloat of new sports cars really becomes apparent when you sit in a vehicle as small as this. The car hasn’t been given the full race car treatment when it comes to suspension and brakes. The springs are still quite soft, though the Abarth package does add upgraded Brembo stoppers and a limited-slip differential. The centre-of-gravity is low, and the car feels well-balanced — no surprises when you enter or exit a turn.

Alex Reid

Alex Reid

Alex Reid

Alex Reid

Alex Reid

Alex Reid

Alex Reid

Alex Reid

Alex Reid

Alex Reid

Alex Reid

Though the 124 and 500 share an engine, the experience could not be more different. Obviously, the hatchback is shorter and taller than the slender 124, and you feel it in every corner, especially at Laguna Seca where almost none are taken on flat ground. Pitch it into a turn and you lean like Pisa. The front wheels try desperately to keep you pointed in the right direction, but the weight transfer works against your favour. All you can do is apply a dab of brake, causing the car to rotate. In a few corners, my car must’ve looked like it was going to take a piss on the apex.

Apologies to the “enthusiasts,” but having a go in a manual-trans Fiat 500 around the track was pretty unpleasant. The shifter is floppy and the throws are long, and most of us “journalists” couldn’t get into the seating position.

As sacrilegious as it sounds, the automatic transmission in the 500 was splendid, and offered quicker gear changes than I could pull off with my right hand and left foot. The positioning of the shifter is perfect for snapping up and down the gears, and the short throws made it feel like a rally car.

If you’re asking me to hand in my “enthusiast” badge immediately, perhaps I can reel you back in by suggesting the automatic in the 124 did not offer the same feeling. Although it too can be manually shifted with the same blip of the gear lever or flick of the steering-wheel-mounted paddles, the slushbox was much slower to respond, and wouldn’t downshift if you weren’t in the 11 or 12 o’clock positions on the rev counter. This meant more time spent thinking about shifting than other things, tainting the experience slightly. OK, give me my badge back.

The six-speed manual transmission in the 124 is borrowed from the previous-generation NC Miata, and offers an excellent notchy feel that doesn’t care if you wring its neck.

Five speeds are all you get in the 500, which, in truth, works better for the track; the six-speed double-overdrive of the 124 offered wider ratios, which did no good in keeping the engine in a high enough rev range to keep the turbo spinning.

After having our fun at the track, we were invited to drive the back roads of California, an opportunity that cannot be missed. Heading away from the city, I got a taste of what the 124 was like to drive day-to-day. I was surprised, but not in a good way. The transmission let me down again with its weird ratios, and the suspension was too tough to make regular commuting bearable.

The first-to-second shift is the most egregious offender, dropping almost 2,000 revolutions. It’s especially noticeable driving the car on the street — I found myself winding the engine up to 6,000 rpm in San Francisco traffic to avoid an upshift and inevitable downshift back to first when taillights came on ahead. Sixth gear doesn’t drop the revs enough from fifth, so during highway driving you still get a fair amount of drone around 2,500 rpm, especially with the sports exhaust.

I was starting to get worried Fiat had built a car that wasn’t really good at anything — I had taken it to the track, driven it on the street, and was let down twice. Turning off the interstate and onto the back roads of the California coast, however, I was happy to be proven wrong. Very wrong.

Once again, the space in between comes into play. It was here the 124 showed its true colours, in between the track and the traffic, on a road that itself has little reason to exist. The more-compliant suspension soaked up the bumps of the farm-crossed landscape, but still offered ample stiffness to keep the position of the front wheels known through every turn.

Were I to choose the gear ratios for the track, I would pick evenly spaced gears all the way to a 1:1 fifth, with a much lower sixth so I could hear the radio. But if I had, I’d have ruined the 124 for the street. My complaining had been for naught.

The transmission’s character completely changed on this twisting, windy road, offering me a perfect trio of gears in two, three and four. Heel-and-toe shifts were easily smashed off as the corners became tighter and civilization faded away. Pops and bangs from the sport exhaust were plentiful, what with the constant shifts and engine braking. There wasn’t a need for any more power out of the small four-cylinder — on this back road, you would never ask for it.

This is it, this is where the 124 is built to live, here in the in-between, where the (not) posted speed limit doesn’t exceed 70 km/h and the road you’re traveling isn’t meant to take you anywhere in particular.

Yes, the Fiat 124 fits perfectly into the space in between practicality and performance, embodying ikigai perfectly.

But in the end, death. Very much a part of life, whether the life of man or machine. The Fiat 500 will die by 2020 and leave another space, one that isn’t as easy to fill.

So give us a Fiat Abarth, a small sports car with space in between the words as important as the space in our lives, a space filled with purpose, invisible to those who cannot see.